International Bank of Azerbaijan bond falls on Moody's downgrade

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Dollar bonds issued by the International Bank of Azerbaijan fell on Tuesday after the Moody’s agency downgraded its credit rating in light of the bank’s debt restructuring.

Data from Tradeweb showed that the bank’s $500 million bond maturing 2019 fell 1.5 cents to 83.95 cents, just shy of the low hit on May 11.

The bank, which is Azerbaijan’s biggest lender, said on Friday it needed to restructure more than $3 billion of its debt to tackle bad loans left over from the slump in oil prices.

In response, on Monday Moody’s downgraded the bank’s foreign currency senior unsecured debt rating to Caa3, and placed all long-term ratings on review for a possible downgrade.

“Given the financial condition of the bank, we cannot rule out haircuts to principal,” analysts at Exotix said in a note, referring to the possibility that investors would have to write down some of the debt.

The sovereign’s 2024 issue was down a quarter of a cent whilst those of state oil firm SOCAR were unchanged.